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Eno Sarris

Saves and Steals

Mellow Deadline, Raucous Pens

Some might call this past trade deadline a boring one. Only the two closers most likely to be traded were sent packing, and most of the fantasy opportunity lies in the Philadelphia outfield. One of the players sent packing had already been traded at the deadline before! Maybe it wasn't the craziest, zaniest deadline ever.

On the other hand, if your team bought a player, you're probably excited. And you might know that it can get worse in the future. With wild cards now worse than half a division champs playing card -- they get a game, not a series, and their chances of making the world series is half of what a wild card winner had last year -- teams may find themselves standing pat more often in the future.

So for now, enjoy what the trade deadline looks like. And in honor of this deadline just passed, we'll use the biggest trades completed on Tuesday to name the tiers. The more fantasy implications the deal has, the higher it ranks. Because this is a fantasy column.

It's the classic trade deadline deal -- over-rated closer gets nabbed by a team with a great closer. That kills one closer and a new one sprouts up behind it. A really good one in this case.

Strikeouts are up across baseball. Like up higher than they've ever been. And relievers are striking out more batters than starters, as they always have. Consequence? The average strikeout rate for the top 30 pitchers in saves this year is over 10 per nine. It's over 10 per nine! So, in order to give value in strikeouts, your closer has to have a strikeout rate like these guys have. In fact, it's these guys that are skewing the numbers with their ridiculous strikeout rates. It's too late in the season to go get one of these guys without paying retail, and they might only help you catch up around 10 strikeouts (versus an average closer) in that category now that we've played 2/3 of the season. On the other hand, if you have one of these guys, I bet you're doing well in strikeouts.

And remember, before you get too upset about how the Phillies did during the trade deadline, wins don't necessarily get you saves. A good offense and a decent bullpen are the things most associated with save opportunities, and the Phillies never had one of those things anyway.

Hunter Pence might take a slight ding moving to AT&T park, but it's not as bad as you might think. It's lefty home run power that is suppressed in San Francisco -- righty home run power is only 4% worse than league average there. So Pence won't hurt too badly. He leaves behind him opportunity for a player that was once the best prospect in baseball. Dominic Brown. Brown was once projected by Bill James to go 30/30 -- his speed has since declined a little, and his power looks less exciting than that, but those tools are still there. Brown is one of the better upside waiver pickups of the deadline.

Ernesto Frieri is fine. He hit a little stretch where he was walking guys -- six in his last ten appearances and that one big bad blown save on July 15th -- but he's found the zone recently. He's even better than fine now that Scott downs is hurt and there's no doubt who will get the next save, even if lefties are involved.

We didn't think anyone in this tier would get traded, and they didn't. Rafael Betancourt had some nibbles, but he's under a team-friendly contract into next season, and his team could still use a closer next year, too. He wasn't overpaid, and he's not over-rated. Jason Motte and Rafael Soriano drop a slot or two each now that we know they have below-average strikeout ability (!).

Take the Hunter Pence paragraph and just shave a couple inches off the top. With the new haircut you get an okay player in an okay situation in Los Angeles -- Victorino definitely takes a little bit of a hit -- and a less exciting player behind him. John Mayberry Jr. is probably taking over center field, but he probably doesn't have value in a standard mixed league. The pitchers going to Philadelphia have uncertain and far-off futures. It's a trade, period.

Chris Perez and Huston Street survived! If Perez had the strikeouts of an average closer, he'd be ranked higher, and there's always an asterisk for Street (his health), but they're very decent pitchers. They could move up if the budge those rates higher or stay healthy, especially now that they aren't a risk to be moved by their own teams.

We're going to graduate Tyler Clippard because he has the strikeout rate of an above-average closer, a decent enough walk rate, and has survived a bad stretch (two blown saves between the 17th and 20th). But we're also going to graduate Clippard because Storen has been back for a handful of appearances and he hasn't blown the doors down. Storen's velocity is down two ticks and his swinging strike rate is down a little too. At this point, it would take an extended slump for Clippard to bring Storen back into the role.

Addison Reed hasn't quite had the crazy strikeout rates he showed in the minor leagues. He's been hovering around one per inning all year. He did bring the good control with him, though, and he still has given his teams ten more strikeouts than teams have gotten from Jim Johnson. And going forward, he's just as likely to get as many save opportunities as Johnson, given their teams' respective scoring punch and bullpens.

This trade is actually the most interesting of the deadline, in some ways. The initial response was that Jays' GM Alex Anthopolous just made his first bad trade. Closer inspection just reveals questions all the way around. It seems that a detailed examination of Travis Snider in Pittsburgh doesn't even eliminate the questions -- number one is, can Snider cut the strikeouts while maintaining the power? His history makes no definitive arguments either way, but he's still young and there's still a chance he goes on a power tear the rest of the way. He leaves an opening for another strikeout king -- Anthony Gose -- in Toronto, but since he's even less seasoned and doesn't have much power, it's hard to get behind either guy right now in fantasy unless you're in a deep league.

It's not hard to get behind the newest closer on this list, Greg Holland. Dude can pitch. He's got a strikeout rate over 12 per nine, a great ground-ball rate, and, with his split-finger, three pitches that should keep him from having any platoon issues. Of course, he does have control issues right now, and he's had them before. He might be a Marmolian closer. But he'll get you strikeouts, and we're talking young Carlos Marmol here. Not the recent version. If he could get strike one over the plate more (he's more than 10% below the league average, and that stat is the best single zone stat for predicting walk rate), he could even improve in that area.

Jeremy Affeldt got the save in San Francisco Tuesday night. That's mildly concerning, and then Bruce Bochy didn't say a thing about his closing situation after the game and that's slightly more concerning. He hasn't given Santiago Casilla a vote of confidence recently, either, so it's okay to be concerned. Casilla looks fine, though, and the team did not trade for a closer. Even with Sergio Romo still in that pen, and Jeremy Affeldt getting the save in San Francisco Tuesday night, Casilla is probably fine.

Read more about the most volatile closer situations on the next page.

Some might call this past trade deadline a boring one. Only the two closers most likely to be traded were sent packing, and most of the fantasy opportunity lies in the Philadelphia outfield. One of the players sent packing had already been traded at the deadline before! Maybe it wasn't the craziest, zaniest deadline ever.

On the other hand, if your team bought a player, you're probably excited. And you might know that it can get worse in the future. With wild cards now worse than half a division champs playing card -- they get a game, not a series, and their chances of making the world series is half of what a wild card winner had last year -- teams may find themselves standing pat more often in the future.

So for now, enjoy what the trade deadline looks like. And in honor of this deadline just passed, we'll use the biggest trades completed on Tuesday to name the tiers. The more fantasy implications the deal has, the higher it ranks. Because this is a fantasy column.

It's the classic trade deadline deal -- over-rated closer gets nabbed by a team with a great closer. That kills one closer and a new one sprouts up behind it. A really good one in this case.

Strikeouts are up across baseball. Like up higher than they've ever been. And relievers are striking out more batters than starters, as they always have. Consequence? The average strikeout rate for the top 30 pitchers in saves this year is over 10 per nine. It's over 10 per nine! So, in order to give value in strikeouts, your closer has to have a strikeout rate like these guys have. In fact, it's these guys that are skewing the numbers with their ridiculous strikeout rates. It's too late in the season to go get one of these guys without paying retail, and they might only help you catch up around 10 strikeouts (versus an average closer) in that category now that we've played 2/3 of the season. On the other hand, if you have one of these guys, I bet you're doing well in strikeouts.

And remember, before you get too upset about how the Phillies did during the trade deadline, wins don't necessarily get you saves. A good offense and a decent bullpen are the things most associated with save opportunities, and the Phillies never had one of those things anyway.

Hunter Pence might take a slight ding moving to AT&T park, but it's not as bad as you might think. It's lefty home run power that is suppressed in San Francisco -- righty home run power is only 4% worse than league average there. So Pence won't hurt too badly. He leaves behind him opportunity for a player that was once the best prospect in baseball. Dominic Brown. Brown was once projected by Bill James to go 30/30 -- his speed has since declined a little, and his power looks less exciting than that, but those tools are still there. Brown is one of the better upside waiver pickups of the deadline.

Ernesto Frieri is fine. He hit a little stretch where he was walking guys -- six in his last ten appearances and that one big bad blown save on July 15th -- but he's found the zone recently. He's even better than fine now that Scott downs is hurt and there's no doubt who will get the next save, even if lefties are involved.

We didn't think anyone in this tier would get traded, and they didn't. Rafael Betancourt had some nibbles, but he's under a team-friendly contract into next season, and his team could still use a closer next year, too. He wasn't overpaid, and he's not over-rated. Jason Motte and Rafael Soriano drop a slot or two each now that we know they have below-average strikeout ability (!).

Take the Hunter Pence paragraph and just shave a couple inches off the top. With the new haircut you get an okay player in an okay situation in Los Angeles -- Victorino definitely takes a little bit of a hit -- and a less exciting player behind him. John Mayberry Jr. is probably taking over center field, but he probably doesn't have value in a standard mixed league. The pitchers going to Philadelphia have uncertain and far-off futures. It's a trade, period.

Chris Perez and Huston Street survived! If Perez had the strikeouts of an average closer, he'd be ranked higher, and there's always an asterisk for Street (his health), but they're very decent pitchers. They could move up if the budge those rates higher or stay healthy, especially now that they aren't a risk to be moved by their own teams.

We're going to graduate Tyler Clippard because he has the strikeout rate of an above-average closer, a decent enough walk rate, and has survived a bad stretch (two blown saves between the 17th and 20th). But we're also going to graduate Clippard because Storen has been back for a handful of appearances and he hasn't blown the doors down. Storen's velocity is down two ticks and his swinging strike rate is down a little too. At this point, it would take an extended slump for Clippard to bring Storen back into the role.

Addison Reed hasn't quite had the crazy strikeout rates he showed in the minor leagues. He's been hovering around one per inning all year. He did bring the good control with him, though, and he still has given his teams ten more strikeouts than teams have gotten from Jim Johnson. And going forward, he's just as likely to get as many save opportunities as Johnson, given their teams' respective scoring punch and bullpens.

This trade is actually the most interesting of the deadline, in some ways. The initial response was that Jays' GM Alex Anthopolous just made his first bad trade. Closer inspection just reveals questions all the way around. It seems that a detailed examination of Travis Snider in Pittsburgh doesn't even eliminate the questions -- number one is, can Snider cut the strikeouts while maintaining the power? His history makes no definitive arguments either way, but he's still young and there's still a chance he goes on a power tear the rest of the way. He leaves an opening for another strikeout king -- Anthony Gose -- in Toronto, but since he's even less seasoned and doesn't have much power, it's hard to get behind either guy right now in fantasy unless you're in a deep league.

It's not hard to get behind the newest closer on this list, Greg Holland. Dude can pitch. He's got a strikeout rate over 12 per nine, a great ground-ball rate, and, with his split-finger, three pitches that should keep him from having any platoon issues. Of course, he does have control issues right now, and he's had them before. He might be a Marmolian closer. But he'll get you strikeouts, and we're talking young Carlos Marmol here. Not the recent version. If he could get strike one over the plate more (he's more than 10% below the league average, and that stat is the best single zone stat for predicting walk rate), he could even improve in that area.

Jeremy Affeldt got the save in San Francisco Tuesday night. That's mildly concerning, and then Bruce Bochy didn't say a thing about his closing situation after the game and that's slightly more concerning. He hasn't given Santiago Casilla a vote of confidence recently, either, so it's okay to be concerned. Casilla looks fine, though, and the team did not trade for a closer. Even with Sergio Romo still in that pen, and Jeremy Affeldt getting the save in San Francisco Tuesday night, Casilla is probably fine.

Now Dempster is a pretty good player. But in Texas, against American League lineups, he's going to have some trouble. Look at Roy Oswalt, who went from credible to kaput there just this year. And there's nobody coming up behind him in his wake, no real exciting pitcher coming up for the Cubs. It's just one of those trades that takes away without giving back. Some of these closers might actually function this way -- Carlos Marmol might be below replacement, and only hurting your team. How badly do you want those saves?

With Steve Cishek and Jared Burton, we're just stuck waiting for their next save opportunity. Their teams are having trouble scoring and don't have great bullpens from top to bottom -- the Twins one is pretty good but not great -- so they aren't getting a ton of opportunities. There's an uncertain future for each. But they're worth rostering unless Greg Holland is still out there.

John Axford should get better. He'd been better since he was moved from the closer's role (five strikeouts and one walk in 6 1/3 innings), so his manager said he'd ease him back into the role. His first try back was disastrous, to the point where fans were wondering if he could get two blown saves for his five-out meltdown. Then he got back in the saddle the next night and finished out a game. If he's on your wire, he shouldn't be, and Francisco Rodriguez, who isn't what he used to be, is droppable.

So we told you last week that Francisco Cordero wouldn't last, and then he went out and blew up, in a bad way. Now he's talking of retiring and the manager has announced that Wilton Lopez has the job. Except that Wilton Lopez has elbow tightness and has had UCL trouble in the past. If they don't shut down Lopez for Tommy John surgery, he'll make for a bottom-tier closer in the Brandon League vein. He'll strike out about three per nine less than a regular closer and that'll cost you just under ten strikeouts the rest of the way versus an average closer. He'll make it work.

Bobby Parnell, or Captain Fastball, can't hump his fastball up to triple digits until about the second or third batter he faces. Maybe he needs some sort of exaggerated warmup routine? It won't matter long, hopefully. Frank Francisco keeps getting nearer to Queens, even with the latest setback. Josh Edgin came up in the last manager's meeting with Terry Collins and he was non-committal. He did like Edgin's work and thought he could send him out there in a high-leverage situation, but he stopped short of calling Edgin the interim closer for now.

Frank Francisco will appear in a couple rehab appearances over the next week and should be in the bigs soon. Andrew Bailey begins his rehab assignment, and it might be a longer one. There's an uncertain role at the end of it, too. But they traded Josh Reddick for him, and they may want to see if he can be their closer in 2013. Sergio Santos is still out for the year, and Matt Capps might follow him down the rabbit hole soon.

Broxton's swinging strike rates told us this was coming a long time ago. Not quite the Brox Ox he used to be.

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The Steals Department

Starling Marte is the hot new toy in Pittsburgh, and since he hit a home run and stole a base in his first week, he's probably being picked up on your waiver wires currently. It's not all rosy with Marte, though. Though he stole 45 bases in Double- and Triple-A combined since the start of the 2011 season, he's also been caught 24 times. That sort of success rate does not usually give a speedster the green light. And though he hit 24 home runs in those 1003 combined plate appearances, he only hit five in the over 500 plate appearances that came before those. His home run power in the majors is a… major question mark. He also doesn't walk, like ever, so he won't be padding his stolen bases after walks. So Marte is interesting, but don't drop an established player for him. He'll probably only hit a couple more home runs and steal a handful of bags.

The Phillies outfield, on the other hand, has a flavor for a league of any size. Shallow mixed? You'll still get some use out Juan Pierre if you sit him against lefties. Deeper mixed league? Domonic Brown was once projected to go 30/30 by Bill James. He doesn't have that kind of speed anymore -- he's probably more like a 15/20 bag thief over a full season -- and the shine has come off his power, too. But if you need someone that could hit .280 and give you a handful of power and speed -- basically Marte-type stats -- Brown will be there for you. Deeper still? John Mayberry Jr. strikes out too much, and doesn't really steal bags, but he'll be available and has some thump. He's probably the new center fielder. And, depending on how the playing time shakes out, you can't forget about Nate Schierholtz. He's going from a terrible park for lefty power and into one that loves lefties. He could steal a couple along with a decent batting average and some power. They traded away all their outfielders, so you know there's an opportunity here for someone to step forward. Of course, if steals and steals alone are your wish, you might look in the Toronto outfield -- Anthony Gose looks like he might be starting most days now that Travis Snider is gone, and Gose stole 78 bases across two levels last season. He's a Burner with a capital B.